Forum:Suggestions
Ciao guys! I find this page for case. I think that lfn is a beautiful creole language, but i think also that this will remain only a linguistic exercise. Maybe a english creole with a simple grammar and spelling that can be understood by a native speaker, would be better. *Maybe so, but this is LFN. It is what it is, and we like it :) Simon **plus, one of the reasons people believe we need an artificial international language is because they are troubled by the hegemony of the english language. not to say an english creole is a bad idea: I personally love bislama and similar "pidgins". jorj **Why do not tray to create it? Can be funny. **It could be a lot of fun, yes! But this site is about making LFN as good as possible. If you want to try building an English-based creole, feel free to go ahead. But not here. Simon However, my suggestions are: 1) remove the h sound, and replace x with c, and c with k *The letter "h" only appears in a tiny number of words, e.g. "hoci = hockey", purely to make those words easier to recognise when written down. The sound of "h" can be omitted in speech. The use of "c" for the "k" sound is a great feature of LFN; the letter "k" looks jarring in Romance words. The use of "x" for the "ʃ" sound is taken straight from Portuguese, one of LFN's five source languages. Simon **and in catalan. jorj **In practice the h sound is unnecessary. **And that's why it can be omitted in LFN pronunciation. But the H remains a useful part of the spelling. Originally, LFN did not have H in the spelling. It was added by popular demand. Simon 2) remove the -s plural, and replace it with a plural article "le", and remove the article "un" use it only as a number *You can't remove the article "un". The syntax relies on it. For example, "me vide un bela" means "I see a beautiful (person/thing)", but "me vide bela" means "I see beautifully". Simon **we did try using "li" for the plural in place of "-s", but found it cumbersome. "un", of course, has two meanings. but they are so close together, it seemed strange to use two different words. besides, it is used the way lfn uses it in all the romance languages. jorj **If use a plural article is cumbersome, it is also use a pre-verbal particle. If you use a declination for the plural, it would make sense use -v and -t, or other letter for the verbs. **Been there, done that! LFN originally used -ra for the future inflection and -va for the past. This was found to be cumbersome, and the present system of "va" and "ra" was introduced instead. Similarly, LFN used to have an -r inflection for the infinitive, but it was removed because it was redundant and it complicated the grammar. I think the plural article was disliked because LFN determiners are otherwise completely invariant, so "li" seemed strange. Simon 3) don't use the plural -s or le when is used a determiner that quantifies the number, because is redundant. For example: not "du gatos/le du gato" and "tota gatos/le tota gato" but "du gato" and "tota gato" *You're right that the "-s" is often redundant. I believe a version of LFN without the "-s" was tried once (before my time), but was felt to be too strange. If we take a different example, "tota vino" means "all wine", but "tota vinos" means "all wines", i.e. all varieties of wine. And you can't always remove the article, because it's used to distinguish many cases that would otherwise be ambiguous, e.g. "nos come = we eat", "la nos come = our meal". Simon **exactly. we need articles (and the plural -s actually serves as an article) as the price we pay for other simplifications. look at the polynesian languages, which have the same concerns. jorj **Maybe i explained bad. I did not say to remove the article but replace the -s with an article. And not use a double plural. Simon admited that a plural is often redundant, for all these case is not necessary. Also with your wine example, because can be use "tota vino" for "all wine" and "li vino/vinos" for "all wines". But this is not necessary because the context is important to understand. Du gato is du gato, the -s or li is useless with a quantifying determiner. This happen with my italian language. All the words ending with a consonant like film or bar and very few words with a vowel like video or cinema. Do not change for the plural but use a quantifying determiner including a number and a plural article. "i bar" for "the bars" "due cinema" for "two cinemas". **What you say is entirely correct. But LFN is too well established now – lots of texts have been translated, and it's too late to introduce a change as radical as this. One quick counterexample: "me vide alga gatos" = "I see some (number of) cats"; "me vide alga gato" = "I see some cat (or other)". Simon **first, redundancy isn't always a bad thing. second, when you make something optional, you force people to select, which comes naturally to children raised in a language, but is difficult for those who have to learn it. lfn does have several optional items, but they are far less significant than plurality. jorj